Gallup: 2017 Global Law and Order report – Venezuela least safe country in the world

Venezuela’s Descent: Least Safe Country in the World

by Julie Ray

Story Highlights

New report shares Law and Order Index results for 135 countries

Venezuelans least secure — just 12% feel safe walking alone

Singapore tops the world in security

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Venezuela’s score on Gallup’s Law and Order Index — its annual global gauge of how secure people feel — continued to follow the country’s descent into chaos in 2016. The country’s index score of 42 out of 100 was the lowest in the world last year. This number is likely even worse now as the country’s economic and political crisis deepens, including the election on Sunday that critics, including the U.S. and a growing list of nations, are denouncing as a “sham.”

Across 135 countries, Law and Order Index scores in 2016 ranged from a high of 97 in Singapore to the low of 42 in Venezuela. The index is based on people’s reported confidence in their local police, their feelings of personal safety, the incidence of theft in the past year and — for the first time in 2016 — the incidence of assault and mugging in the past year.

The changes in the index scoring in 2016 make it impossible to directly compare current index scores to those released in previous years. But if the 2016 data are scored without the assault and mugging question, Singapore still scores the highest in the world (97) and Venezuela still scores the lowest in the world (29). Venezuela has been no stranger to the bottom of the list — it was the lowest-scoring country in 2013 and 2015, and second-lowest in 2014. Singapore has been at the top since 2013.

Venezuela’s scores on all of the individual questions that make up the current index were worse last year than at any point in the past decade. Just 12% of Venezuelans in 2016 said they felt safe walking alone at night where they live, and 14% expressed confidence in their police. These are not only the worst on record for Venezuela, but the worst for any country last year — and for the past 10 years.

To put Venezuela’s 12% who feel safe walking alone at night into perspective, the next-lowest figure in 2016 was more than twice as high as Venezuela: 28% in El Salvador. Among the 12 countries in which residents are least likely to say they feel safe walking alone at night, five are in Latin America. Another six are in sub-Saharan Africa — including two of that region’s more economically developed countries, South Africa (37%) and Botswana (38%).

Safe Walking Alone at Night in Your Neighborhood

Least likely to feel safe*

Most likely to feel safe

Yes, feel safe

Yes, feel safe

%

%

Mauritania

39

Singapore

97

Congo (Kinshasa)

39

Uzbekistan

92

Argentina

39

Iceland

88

Botswana

38

Norway

87

South Africa

37

Rwanda

87

Brazil

36

Slovenia

87

Afghanistan

36

Hong Kong

86

Liberia

35

Denmark

83

Dominican Republic

33

Switzerland

83

Gabon

33

Spain

83

El Salvador

28

Armenia

83

Venezuela

12

* In Syria, where residents were among the least likely worldwide to say they felt safe in 2015, security conditions prevented Gallup from conducting a survey there in 2016.

Gallup World Poll, 2016

At the same time, 38% of Venezuelans said they had had property or money stolen in the past year. This is up more than 10 percentage points from the previous year and a new record high for the country. Only five countries — all in sub-Saharan Africa — had higher percentages than Venezuela in 2016.

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Venezuela is also among the 14 countries worldwide in which at least 15% of residents say they have been assaulted or mugged in the past year — the new question included in the index in 2016. All but one of the 14 are in sub-Saharan Africa; the lone exception is Venezuela, where 22% say they have been assaulted or mugged in the past year. In a handful of these countries in sub-Saharan Africa, about one in four say they have been assaulted or mugged in the past year.

Latin America and the Caribbean Score Lowest on Security

Venezuela’s scores continue to stand out even in Latin America and the Caribbean, where residents are the least likely among all global regions to feel secure in their communities. Latin America and the Caribbean scored a 64 on Gallup’s Law and Order Index — unchanged from its 2015 score. Residents of the U.S. and Canada, Southeast Asia, East Asia and Western Europe are the most likely to feel secure, with index scores of 84 or higher.

Gallup Law and Order Index Across Global Regions

2015

2016

Difference

%

%

pct. pts.

U.S. and Canada

83

86

+3

Southeast Asia

85

85

0

East Asia

82

84

+2

Western Europe

83

84

+1

Middle East and North Africa

79

82

+3

Eastern Europe

78

80

+2

South Asia

79

78

-1

Commonwealth of Independent States

74

76

+2

Sub-Saharan Africa

69

68

-1

Latin America and the Caribbean

64

64

0

Gallup World Poll, 2016

At the regional level, the 2016 Law and Order Index scores have remained relatively stable since 2015, changing no more than three points in any of the global regions. Scores for individual countries also changed little, with a few exceptions.

Implications

Venezuelans’ falling scores on Gallup’s measures of law and order are just one example of how their country has gone from one of the richest in South America to ruin in just a few short years. In fact, most aspects of Venezuelans’ lives are worse now than they were before President Nicolas Maduro took office in 2013. In 2012, the majority of Venezuelans (57%) were thriving; that number stood at just 13% in 2016.

And, Venezuelans in 2016 were among the most likely in the world to report struggling to buy food their families needed — with the 80% unable to afford food on par with populations in places such as Malawi and Central African Republic. In 2012, this percentage was just 27%.

No other country Gallup surveys has seen its people’s ratings of their lives fall this far this fast in the past decade. And as bad as those ratings were last year, they are likely even worse now and not likely to get better soon. The latest violence and political turmoil will probably only make Venezuela’s economic and humanitarian crisis worse — the opposite of what Maduro says Sunday’s election was designed to do.

Survey Methods

Results are based on telephone and face-to-face interviews with approximately 1,000 adults, aged 15 and older, conducted throughout 2016 in 135 countries. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error ranged from ±2.1 percentage points to ±5.6 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.

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About Trần Đình Hoành

I am an attorney in the Washington DC area, with a Doctor of Law in the US, attended the master program at the National School of Administration of Việt Nam, and graduated from Sài Gòn University Law School. I aso studied philosophy at the School of Letters in Sài Gòn.
I have worked as an anti-trust attorney for Federal Trade Commission and a litigator for a fortune-100 telecom company in Washington DC. I have taught law courses for legal professionals in Việt Nam and still counsel VN government agencies on legal matters. I have founded and managed businesses for me and my family, both law and non-law.
I have published many articles on national newspapers and radio stations in Việt Nam.
In 1989 I was one of the founding members of US-VN Trade Council, working to re-establish US-VN relationship.
Since the early 90's, I have established and managed VNFORUM and VNBIZ forum on VN-related matters; these forums are the subject of a PhD thesis by Dr. Caroline Valverde at UC-Berkeley and her book Transnationalizing Viet Nam.
I translate poetry and my translation of "A Request at Đồng Lộc Cemetery" is now engraved on a stone memorial at Đồng Lộc National Shrine in VN.
I study and teach the Bible and Buddhism. In 2009 I founded and still manage dotchuoinon.com on positive thinking and two other blogs on Buddhism. In 2015 a group of friends and I founded website CVD - Conversations on Vietnam Development (cvdvn.net).
I study the art of leadership with many friends who are religious, business and government leaders from many countries.
In October 2011 Phu Nu Publishing House in Hanoi published my book "Positive Thinking to Change Your Life", in Vietnamese (TƯ DUY TÍCH CỰC Thay Đổi Cuộc Sống).
In December 2013 Phu Nu Publishing House published my book "10 Core Values for Success".
I practice Jiu Jitsu and Tai Chi for health, and play guitar as a hobby, usually accompanying my wife Trần Lê Túy Phượng, aka singer Linh Phượng.